Undercover lovers
by thegirl20
Summary: Cindy needs a pretend date. She asks Jill. Things happen.
1. Dating undercover

"You're asking me out on a date?" Jill asked, obviously highly amused by the idea.

Cindy groaned, but couldn't hide the flush that rose in her cheeks. She fiddled with a paperweight on Jill's desk.

"It's not a date. I have an informant who gave me a lead on the spate of attacks on gay people over the last couple of months. I've narrowed the source of the attacks down to one bar and I'd like to check it out."

"And you want me to be your date?"

"I want you to come with me so that I don't get hit on and I'm free to dig around."

Jill grinned.

"I see, so you're so irresistible to women that you'd be fighting them off with a stick and would have no time to do your reporter shtick, is that it?"

"Something like that," Cindy muttered, regretting bringing the subject up in the first place.

Jill leaned forward, putting her elbows on her desk.

"So how come you're asking me? I would've thought that Lindsay would be your first port of call if you ever needed an emergency pretend girlfriend Oh, and by the way, she'll kill both of us if she ever finds out we did this.."

Cindy's eyes went wide.

"Lin-…I…well I…no."

"Why not?" Jill pressed, leaning closer, her voice becoming lower.

"Because Lindsay's a cop and would insist on taking over the investigation and she'd bring up stuff about the law," Cindy babbled.

"And I, being a lawyer, am totally indifferent to the law?"

"No! No, it's not that. It's…"

"What?" Jill asked, eyes dancing with glee at Cindy's discomfort."

"Lindsay makes me nervous, OK? She's so intense and driven and focussed and I feel like a silly little kid around her," Cindy finally blurted out, surprising both herself and Jill.

Jill sat back in her chair, regarding Cindy strangely.

"Oh…cuz I kinda thought you had a little crush on the good inspector. You're always running after her like a puppy-dog."

"That would be me trying to prove that I'm _not_ a little kid and that I _am_ good at what I do," Cindy explained, still blushing from her confession.

"Oh…OK," Jill said, still a little taken aback.

Cindy decided that she'd be as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb and plunged into another confession.

"But I've always kinda thought that you'd be fun if I ever got to see you outside the," she made quotations marks with her fingers, "'club.'"

Jill smiled slowly.

"Well, I guess you'll find out tonight, Cindy-Sue."

*

The music in the bar was unobtrusive, middle of the road type stuff. Cindy hummed along to the song playing as she stretched onto her tip-toes, trying to get the attention of the bar-tender. She sighed in frustration as he served someone else. Then a body pressed against the length of her back, an arm snaking around her waist.

"Having some trouble, honey?" Jill whispered in her ear.

"Yeah," Cindy said, thinking that she was having a lot more trouble since Jill started touching her than she was having before.

Jill was still wrapped around her, and had rested her chin on Cindy's shoulder. It was distracting, to say the least. The next time the bar-tender looked up, Jill caught his eye.

"Two Jack and Cokes."

Cindy turned around as best she could with Jill in such close proximity.

"I wanted a vo-"

"You're getting Jack and Coke."

Cindy shrugged. She was getting a Jack and Coke. Jill handed her a twenty.

"Here. Pay the man. I have to go to the restroom."

Cindy paid for the drinks and stayed by the bar, stirring her own drink listlessly. She surveyed the room from her vantage point, wondering where to start questioning. A body drew in close to her side. She turned, it wasn't Jill. It was a rather large woman with short, black hair. And a tattoo on her neck.

"Hey there, Red. You lookin' for some company?"

"Uh…"

Cindy tried to think of a non-insulting rejection but was saved by the sound of Jill's voice coming from behind her.

"Hey baby, sorry I took so long."

Cindy spun around just in time to end up in Jill's arms. And then Cindy's world spun off its axis.

Jill kissed her.

Not a chaste, between friends, on the cheek kiss. Oh no, this was a proper knee-trembling, mouth-bruising, tongue-twisting, put-fire-in-your-belly kiss. Cindy felt her body go limp against the taller woman, submitting to her completely.

When Jill finally pulled away, Cindy's suitor had gone. Cindy was panting embarrassingly hard and was still clinging to Jill for fear of falling. Jill smiled down at her, breathing heavily herself.

"So…d'you still wanna do your reporter thing?" she asked, huskily.

"No. I want you to kiss me again," Cindy answered immediately and without embarrassment.

Jill chuckled.

"But what about the Bay Area Gay Basher?" she asked, moving in closer, but stopping short of Cindy's lips.

"Fuck him!"

And with that, Cindy put a hand behind Jill's neck and crashed their lips together. This time when they parted, it was Jill who was more than a little flustered.

"You wanna go back to my place?" Cindy asked, eyes huge and dark in the dim light of the bar.

Jill made a noise which contained a lot of vowel sounds, but no consonants. Cindy took it to be an affirmative. Without further thought, Cindy grabbed Jill's hand, turned around and marched both of them out of the bar to hail a cab.

*

Despite making no progress whatsoever on the gay-bashing case, Jill and Cindy _did_ spend the night engaged in activities which they never fully explained to Lindsay. Cindy even managed not to cave under interrogation in Papa Joe's regarding a rather suspect blemish on her neck. It helped that Jill happened to be running her foot up and down Cindy's calf at the time, rendering Lindsay's laser-vision virtually impotent.

Of course, they were only able to keep their secret for so long. Lindsay had an awful habit of barging into Jill's office unannounced.


	2. Working late

Jill looked up at the sound of her door opening. She smiled when she saw Cindy Thomas closing it and leaning back against it.

"Hey, this is a surprise," Jill said, leaning back in her chair and stretching her arms above her head.

"Well, since I haven't seen you in _forever_ I thought one of us had to make the effort," Cindy responded, her voice gentler then her words suggested.

"Cindy, you saw me yesterday."

"For breakfast at Papa Joe's! With Claire and Lindsay!" Cindy whined, pushing off the door and coming to sit in Jill's guest chair.

"Uh huh. Where you basically ignored me, by the way."

"Oh, yeah, cuz I'm gonna be all over you with Lindsay the Human Lie Detector sitting right next to me."

Jill smiled at Cindy's description of her best friend.

"I'm not saying that you should give me a lapdance over coffee but, you know, making eye-contact every now and again wouldn't go amiss."

Cindy sighed and leaned her elbows on Jill's desk, propping her chin on her hands.

"You're _always_ working," she complained, surveying the many files strewn over Jill's desk.

"That's what grown-ups do, honey, maybe when you're a big girl you'll understand," Jill teased, turning her attention back to the file she'd been working on.

Cindy watched her for a few minutes, bored. Then she stood up, walked to the door, and pulled the shade. Jill's head snapped up.

"What are you doing?"

Cindy stalked back across the room and rounded Jill's desk. She leaned in close so that Jill could feel her breath on her lips.

"I'm proving to you that I'm a big girl," she whispered, planting a knee on Jill's chair between her thighs and crashing their lips together.

Cindy lost herself in the sensation of the kiss, until she realised that the chair was rolling backwards.

"Mmmmph!"

Cindy was only saved from falling by the chair hitting the wall and Jill somehow keeping her upright enough to find her footing again. She stood up and held her hand out to Jill who regarded it warily.

"What are you doing now?"

"We need a more stable surface."

"For what?"

Cindy wiggled her eyebrows.

"Cindy, I'm not doing _that_ in my office. Again. The walls are really thin and…"

"And I checked before I came in, Denise has gone home for the night, yours was the only light in the whole corridor. Who the hell else is gonna be working at ten o'clock on a Friday night?"

Jill seemed to ponder this before coming to a decision. She took Cindy's offered hand and was pulled to her feet. Cindy put her hand on Jill's hips and manoeuvred her around so that she was walking backwards.

"Wait!" Jill cried.

"What?"

"I have to tidy this stuff away."

"That's gonna be a total buzzkill on my spontaneity. I was planning to sweep it all dramatically to the floor and throw you down on the desk and ravish you."

"OK, firstly, if you tried to throw me _anywhere_ you'd do yourself an injury, on account of you being a tiny person. And secondly, if you even _thought_ about messing up the casefiles that I've spent the past _two weeks_ categorising and annotating, then I'm afraid that I'd have to beat you to death with a paperweight."

Cindy pouted.

"You'd murder me in the Hall of Justice?"

"And I'd get away with it," Jill said, grinning. She leaned in close to Cindy's ear to whisper, "I'm in a murder club, after all."

"Fine!" Cindy exclaimed, sighing dramatically and dropping back into Jill's chair while Jill tidied away her files.

Eventually satisfied, Jill turned around to face Cindy with her arms held out at her sides.

"OK, I'm all yours, ravish me!"

Cindy grinned wickedly and stood, backing Jill into the desk until she was forced to sit on the surface with Cindy standing between her legs. It gave Cindy a slight height advantage, which she liked immensely. Cindy leaned in and captured Jill's mouth, her hand caressing the back of Jill's neck, enjoying the feel of the downy hair there. Increasing the urgency of the kiss, Cindy started to lean Jill backwards, supporting her with both arms while she managed to get a knee on the desk and propel herself up. Jill wrenched her lips away.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Stop!" she cried, pushing Cindy away.

"What? I hadn't even started yet!" Cindy said, indignantly.

"No, I know, but I think I'm lying on my stapler," Jill explained, reaching behind herself and pulling out the offending item.

"Didn't do all that great with the tidying thing, did you?" Cindy asked.

"Shut up and kiss me!"

Cindy shrugged and obliged. She urged Jill back a little on the desk so that she wouldn't feel in quite as precarious a situation as she had been. She stretched herself out on top of Jill, experimenting with limb placement, until she was sure she wasn't going to fall off the desk. Then followed an almighty crash.

"What was that?" Jill asked, looking up at Cindy with wide eyes, a little breathless now from all the kissing.

"Uh…I think my heel got caught in the cord of your lamp. Sorry."

"I'll get a new one," Jill said, yanking Cindy back down again.

Cindy leaned her weight on one elbow, her hand cradling the back of Jill's head. Cindy's other hand was working its way in between their bodies, all the while their lips remained fused. Jill's hands clumsily pulled Cindy's shirt out of her pants while Cindy tried in vain to find out where Jill's pants fastened.

"You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you'd just worn a skirt today," Cindy complained, eventually having to roll off Jill slightly to undo her pants.

"Next time you're planning spontaneous desk sex let me know and I'll come suitably attired," Jill drawled, amused and aroused and impatient.

Cindy had just managed to undo the various hooks and buttons which the designer of Jill's pants seemed to think necessary when it happened. Jill's door opened.

"Jill, I was gonna head to…_Jesus fucking Christ_!"

Cindy's head snapped towards the voice, Jill's did likewise. And they froze in the position they were in. Lindsay Boxer was standing with her mouth hanging open, her eyes glued to where Cindy's hand was resting inside Jill's pants. Jill regained her senses first.

"Linds…we…uh…"

Cindy attempted to rectify the compromising position but only succeeded in falling off the desk and landing on the floor with a bump.

"Ouch."

"You OK?" Jill's voice sounded far away.

"I'm fine."

She decided that it was better just to lie on the floor behind the desk. It meant not having to look at Lindsay. She lay and listened to the stilted conversation going on in the room.

"Lindsay. Say something."

"I should've knocked."

"OK."

"I…should go now."

"OK…we're gonna talk about this at some point though, right?"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. We'll talk about it. A lot. Preferably when you're fully dressed."

"OK."

"OK. So. I'm going."

"Linds?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"I'm sorry I didn't knock."

"I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?"

"Yep. Tomorrow. With clothes."

Cindy heard the door closing and sighed in relief. Jill's head appeared over the edge of the desk.

"Why are you still lying there? Did you break something?"

"No," she winced as she sat up, "But I'm gonna have a hell of a bruise on my ass tomorrow."

Jill hopped off the desk and pulled Cindy to her feet. Cindy scrunched up her face.

"Listen…are there rules about intra-club dating? I mean, is Claire gonna sit me down and talk to me about my intentions? And is Lindsay gonna threaten to shoot me if I hurt you?"

"Honey, Claire will probably sit _me_ down and lecture me on cradle-snatching. As for Lindsay threatening to shoot you…yeah, she probably will. But she's usually around 90% joking when she does that. With you being a friend, it may even go up to 95% joking."

"Oh…so only a five percent chance of getting shot then, huh? Good odds."

Jill tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

"Planning on hurting me, are you?"

"No."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

Cindy smiled. She glanced over Jill's shoulder at the clear surface of the desk and sighed. She looked back at Jill.

"Hey, why don't we try this the traditional way? We could go back to my place, light a few candles, have some wine…"

"Bored of spontaneity already?" Jill asked, her eyes dancing.

Cindy rubbed the spot on her rump where she'd landed.

"Spontaneity's dangerous. Let's try boring for a while, huh?"

Jill wound her arms around Cindy's waist, pulling the smaller woman against her.

"I can be boring."

Jill brought their lips together and, all at once, all thoughts of Lindsay brandishing a gun vanished from Cindy's mind. At least for the rest of the night.


	3. Friendly conversation

Three sharp knocks on her office door made Jill look up, expecting it to open. When it didn't, she stood and buttoned her jacket, assuming it to be a courier or someone else she didn't know. What she didn't expect was to see Lindsay Boxer staring back at her through the glass partition. Lindsay raised her eyebrows.

"Is it safe to come in?" she said, loudly, so that Jill could hear her through the barrier of the door.

Jill rolled her eyes and yanked the door open. She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, ushering the detective into the room and closing the door after her.

"You're a riot, you know that?" Jill said, taking off her suit jacket and throwing it on a nearby chair.

"Well, I can't be too careful. You know that just yesterday I walked into a lawyer's office only to find her having sex on her desk?" Lindsay said, deadpan.

Jill took the seat behind the desk while Lindsay dropped herself into the guest chair.

"Uh…so yesterday was awkward, huh?" Jill said, flushing slightly at the memory of Lindsay standing staring at her and Cindy.

"You could say that," Lindsay agreed, a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. "It might have been less of a shock if you'd told me that you were seeing a very close associate of ours."

Jill looked down.

"I know. I'm sorry. I…I just didn't know how to tell you."

Lindsay scrunched up her brow.

"You've never had any trouble in the past. I've had to _stop_ you from talking about some of your conquests for fear of my psyche being forever scarred by the level of detail!"

"I know…but…what was I meant to say? '_Hey Linds, you know Cindy? I'm doing her_.'"

Lindsay laughed.

"Well, no," her eyes softened as she looked at Jill. "But I think that's the problem. You're not."

"Not what?"

"Doing her."

"I think you'll find that I _am_. You saw for yourself."

"It's more than that though, isn't it?" Lindsay asked, gently.

Jill squirmed in her seat, suddenly unwilling to meet Lindsay's eyes. Eventually she started speaking.

"I don't know what it is, to tell you the truth. It's so soon after Luke and she's so young and we're friends. I mean, what if it didn't work out?" Jill asked, turning worried blue eyes on Lindsay.

"I'd shoot her," Lindsay said, matter-of-factly.

"Lindsay!" Jill exclaimed.

"I'm just kidding!" Lindsay said, holding her hands up. After a brief pause she leaned closer to Jill. "You know I'm gonna have some fun threatening her with that though, right?"

Jill smiled lopsidedly.

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't. So would she, I think," she said. "I really like her, Linds."

Lindsay stood and walked around Jill's desk. She held out a hand and, when Jill took it, she pulled her to her feet and into a hug. Jill closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Lindsay's shoulder, enjoying the feeling of being encased in strong arms.

"It'll all work out. It always does," Lindsay murmured before pulling away slightly, leaving her arms looped loosely around Jill's waist. "And anyway, look at us, we survived the awkward transition intact. "

Jill laughed.

"True, and of course, there's no weird, residual sexual chemistry between us now, is there?"

"Nope. None."

Lindsay winked and smacked Jill on the ass.

*

Cindy sat alone in the booth at Papa Joe's, shredding a napkin. She had turned her copy in earlier than expected and stopped by Jill's office in the hope of seeing the attorney. Unfortunately, the case Jill was prosecuting was running late so Cindy had decided to go to the diner and treat herself to a cocktail for a job well done.

However, it was only when she sat down and took her first sip of alcohol that Cindy realized she had left herself wide open. She was now at the mercy of fate; she had no idea who would turn up first. Jill…fine. Claire…she could handle. Lindsay…she might just faint. She blushed for the thousandth time that day as she pictured the tall Inspector's eyes on her as she defiled her best friend.

The sound of a bell tinkling drew Cindy out of her reminiscences. She looked up to see the dark figure of Lindsay Boxer stalking toward the booth. On reflex, Cindy looked for an escape route. But it was too late, Lindsay was already sliding onto the bench opposite, her eyes boring holes into Cindy's skull.

"Uh…" Cindy began, unsure if Lindsay was going to talk, or just stare her into submission.

Lindsay raised an eyebrow and Cindy closed her mouth. But that was not Cindy's natural state and before long she was opening it again.

"Look, yesterday was mortifying for me and I don't know if you've talked to Jill about it because I didn't get a chance to speak to her today but if you did I hope that she explained that I wasn't, you know, forcing myself on her or anything and that we've kind of been seeing each other for a little while now and I really, really like her and I'm not sure why we didn't tell you or Claire except that we kinda got together on an undercover thing that we weren't supposed to be on so we couldn't really explain that without incriminating ourselves and from there we just kinda went with the flow and it never came up until you walked in and saw us…ummm…"

"Can I get you some drinks?"

Cindy looked up at the waitress in gratitude.

"Two double scotches, please, on the rocks," Lindsay said, not removing her eyes from Cindy.

"I don't li-…"

"They're both for me, I have a feeling I'm gonna need them."

The waitress left the two women staring each other out. This time, Lindsay was the first to speak.

"OK, firstly, do you ever take a breath?"

Cindy went to respond but Lindsay held a hand up and shook her head.

"I don't need an answer to that one. Secondly, I don't have some big speech about 'treating her right' or anything, but you should know this: Jill has had a lot of shit in her life and a lot of people have treated her badly. I know she's no angel…"

Cindy laughed.

"No, especially when she does that thing with her thu-"

"I don't need details!" Lindsay exclaimed. She pointed at herself. "Me? Talking now." She pointed at Cindy. "You? Not talking now. Got it?"

Cindy nodded, mutely. Lindsay continued, nodding at the waitress as she dropped off the drinks.

"Jill trusts a select few people in this world and if she's chosen to make you one of them you should feel privileged. So," Lindsay leaned across the table and lowered her voice, "if you abuse that trust, you will have to answer to me. And I have a gun."

Cindy nodded slowly, trying not to gulp in a cartoon fashion. For all that Jill had said that Lindsay would joke about shooting her, Cindy would swear at that moment that Lindsay Boxer was one hundred percent serious.

Lindsay kept eye-contact for as long as was necessary for her to be satisfied that Cindy had understood her message. Then she picked up one of the glasses of scotch and tipped the contents down her throat. Cindy eyed the other one for a second, and then followed suit, choking and spluttering as the fiery liquid blazed a trail down her throat before settling in her stomach as a pleasant warmth.

"Moved onto the hard stuff already, I see?"

Claire's voice took Cindy by surprise, she looked up, wiping at the tears that had sprung to her eyes during her coughing fit. Claire slid into the seat beside her, giving her leg a reassuring squeeze, which was all it took for Cindy to know that Claire knew and was fine with it. And it was far more pleasant than Lindsay's technique. Jill took the seat next to Lindsay and looked between the two women.

"Have we been having a girly chat, ladies?" she enquired, lightly.

"Cindy and I were just clearing some stuff up, weren't we Cindy?" Lindsay asked.

"Uh huh," Cindy said, nodding vigorously.

She felt a movement against her calf. It took a second, but she realised that Jill was rubbing her bare foot up and down her leg, more in comfort than in any sexual way. However, Cindy was not taking any chances of getting caught by Lindsay and she snapped both of her legs back under the bench, as far as they would go. All the women at the table looked at her quizzically.

"Cramp," she explained, shrugging.

Lindsay didn't look convinced but she turned to Jill.

"How'd the case go?"

"We won. Life, no parole," Jill said, smugly.

"Great job!" Cindy yelled, along with congratulatory noises from Lindsay and Claire.

"Well, we all played our part," Jill conceded.

"And I think that calls for champagne!" Lindsay said, beckoning for the waitress.

"Champagne? Since when do we get champagne for putting away a murdering asshole?" Claire asked.

Lindsay shrugged.

"I guess I'm just in the mood…and there are other things to celebrate," she explained, winking at Cindy.

Cindy sighed in relief. Apparently the 'bad-cop' section of the evening was over now. Jill elbowed Lindsay in the ribs.

"Lindsay Boxer, you know what champagne does to me. And I haven't even eaten today. I'm gonna be wasted."

"And I may just take advantage of that to find out more about this _'undercover operation'_ that you and Cindy went on without my knowledge," Lindsay said, quirking an eyebrow at Jill.

Jill turned to Cindy.

"You didn't."

Cindy looked at her wide-eyed.

"I…uh…she…she was _interrogating_ me!"

"Roughly translated, she looked at you and you spilled your guts?" Claire asked, her eyes twinkling.

"That about sums it up," Lindsay confirmed.

"She's a detective; her job is making people talk!" Cindy protested, looking at Jill beseechingly.

"Honey, you don't need to get made to talk," Jill said, shaking her head as the waitress dropped off the champagne with four flutes.

Lindsay poured the bubbling liquid into the glasses and they each took one. Lindsay held hers up.

"What'll we drink to?" she asked.

"To truth and justice?" Jill suggested.

"To new beginnings?" Claire said, nudging Cindy and making her blush. Then she perked up.

"Oh, wait, I got one."

They all held up their glasses.

"To Lindsay paying the drinks bill tonight!"

"I'll drink to that!" Jill and Claire said simultaneously, clinking their glasses together and taking a drink.

Lindsay smiled affectionately at the young reporter.

"Cheers."

Cindy smiled back.

"Cheers."

And with that, four friends embarked upon an evening of gossip, teasing and many, many more drinks, to the dismay of Lindsay's credit card.


End file.
